January 17, 2011

Are Workers Planning a Mass Exodus?

Several event came together over the past couple of day. First, I spent the last several days at the Profiles International World Conference in Forth Worth Texas--where a parade of cows and horses marched down the street on Saturday morning--but that is a separate post. The key topic of the conference was developing leaders and managers through a regular 360 review process. Profiles has also penned a great new book on "Leadership Charisma" that helps identify what it is that makes leaders leaders.

Even more exciting, the updated Checkpoint360 tool will now measure the Leadership Charisma index!

It seems that there is quite a bit of pent up frustration amongst workers out there who have been heads down for the last two years--just taking it because they are happy to have jobs. As we start to see the haze clearing heads are lifting and opportunities are starting to become commonplace. While we're not in the go-go times from years past it is certainly better than it was. Massachusetts unemployment is just south of 9%, better than a lot of the country but not where it used to be--that will take time.

Companies are going to have to start meding relationships with overworked and underresourced employees and now it the right time to do it. Investing, even small dollars, can make a huge difference in morale and in performance. Take the 360 that I spoke about earlier--an inexpensive way to develop your leaders by demonstrating interest and using actual information to close gaps. Almost all leaders welcome the opportunity and if they don't--are they really leaders?